Messages - Griffith

Wow, full episode really does justice to the importance of the stones, and very cool how they lend a kind of "structure" and installation to ground it as a form of transportation we can suspend our disbelief for.

Hmmm...according to Puck in v17, these Stonehenge-like structures served as shrines of sorts to the Elves (according to Dark Horse's translation, anyway), and Guts even used it to take refuge from the spectres and incubi. So to see Griffith, a God Hand, appropriate it for his own purposes is...kind of unnerving me. Not only can his army launch an invasion seemingly anywhere in the world, which is already a scary proposition, but it's like nothing is sacred anymore.

Maybe the God Hand prefer to see it like everything is sacred now, especially them. (-o-) <- Conrad

Also, they're definitely going to have one of these transport stations on Skellig, though perhaps it's in disrepair and has been overrun by an evil force!?

Yeah, so far the games I've played that are considered classics and some of the best of all time have been great. My current method is to add it to the list based on video game critic and journalist reviews, but I'm more than fine moving on if I'm not having fun, since that's the whole point. Plus, I've got way too many games on my list to sit with one that isn't fun to play.

Yeah, time has passed some of these games by, but that makes the genuinely timeless ones all the more impressive. Something I've been considering more when thinking about my favorite games in hindsight. On the other hand, sometimes the most ambitious ones of their time age worse because they were pushing boundaries that are taken for granted today, whereas a simple side-scroller can hold up forever.

Nice! I've enjoyed the ones I've played. I've heard the expansions get a little narly, and that they're a lot more difficult than the original campaigns. That being said, I'm not too worried about it. I'm not going for perfection; I'll be satisfied winning the campaigns, even if I don't get all the medals and kill all the Kilrathi aces.

Speaking of ambitious projects that went down historical dead ends, are you going to venture into the "Interactive Movie" that is Wing Commander III? I have a lot of fond memories of that game, but things got weird fast with WCIV, Prophecy and especially Privateer II featuring Clive Owen, John Hurt and Christopher fuckin' Walken among others! I wonder if there will come a day we return to FMV in games and suddenly all those weirdos from the 80s and 90s are considered essential forebears to a new age of interactive "scripted" entertainment. There's so many shows coming these days they'll need to invent new mediums to get them all produced; Netflix and play. =)

Oh, and I should mention that after all that frustration and reassessing my approach I've officially made up with Horizon: Zero Dawn and we spent hours together happily yesterday.

I've never subscribed to the idea that apostles could just fly to Elfhelm, seems like an impossibly long journey even by air.

But air travel is the fastest! And we know at least one Apostle can reach supersonic... oh yeah. It is funny that the Apostles flapping their wings and shit might actually be significantly slower than a trip by ship, and maybe they consume so much energy they'd get tired and crash after like three hours. Plus Griff already had to spend hours just standing on Zodd's hand making no conversation and vice versa; how awkward. Apostles, the worst way to fly. =)

In that regard an apostle attack is indeed a nice juicy possibility, although I would argue it'd feel like a repeat of what happened at Flora's. So I guess I'm actually hoping for something different, despite the fact I trust Miura would keep it fresh and absolutely badass even if it was "just" Grunbeld vs Guts round 2 (I sure want to see Grunbeld get what he deserves, whenever that'll be). Regardless of what will actually occur and provoke a crisis, what I would like is for Guts and friends to overcome it and then still decide to leave with a deliberate objective in mind, as opposed to being forced to escape in the nick of time.

That's why I kind of like the idea of bypassing a crisis or attack altogether and Guts' party independently just deciding to use the branches to go back themselves via the precedent provided by Griffith here, rather than it being foreshadowing of his own nefarious use. It'd also be weird pacing if they switch back to Guts/Casca soon and then Griffith comes in slow clapping right after establishing this so recently, "Oh shit, Griff can do THIS now btw! Whew..."

If there is an immediate goal here though it could be we'll see Griffith get some intel that sets him in motion and makes for quite a direct segue. I don't know, your guess is as good as probably better than mine. My selfish desire is we just go right back to Guts/Casca for a while with this planted in the back of our minds, but I'd "settle" for some really deep, creepy God Hand action like Griffith contacting Void via his secret chamber at the base of the tree, "The promised time has come."

First, I'm confident one could easily get all those individually for less than $80, or at least could before this announcement.

I didn't not enjoy my time with Remastered, but I could have had pretty much the same experience just playing my original copy of the game again (I didn't even get to take advantage of the one significant addition, the Vamos bonfire, because he was immediately killed by wheel skeletons in my playthrough =). I'm not quite sure what to call it other than a cash grab port because it's basically worthless as a remaster unless you really give a shit about the 60fps, and how big a deal was that to accomplish anyway? A much more worthwhile project would have been uprezing and importing all those DS1 & 2 assets into the Bloodborne/DS3 engine, but that would have required a lot of additional work and expense to pull off of course (and that's sort of what DS3 was already). Looks like they're just going to be literally and figuratively repackaging and re-releasing them ad nauseam instead.

As others have said, this revelation solves a lot of logistical problems Griffith may face. E.g how does one send an invasion force through a world inhabited by powerful monsters to Elfhelm. And how can Griffith expand Falconia's borders without spreading his war demons thin, now we discover he can launch attacks to practically anywhere. We may even see what has become of Vritannis.

Man, we're taking that Elfhelm invasion for granted! It is an irresistibly juicy idea that makes sense, has precedent, and would also setup Guts and co's departure nicely, even their own use of the branches to "follow" Griffith back to the mainland, if not to Falconia. Still, we're getting ahead of ourselves, and the gang already knows someone that can traverse the branches (which is who truly revealed this, so it was just a matter of time before you-know-who used it too, but now we know others can as well), not to mention a friend that might have an even faster method... <("Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.")

Definitely. This opens up quite a few possibilities for the direction of the story. Means of travel and travel time could potentially no longer be a barrier for future plot developments. As far as Guts' side of things is concerned, at one point I considered the possibility of the group sailing the Seahorse across the branches of the World Spiral Tree as their next means of travel post-Skellig. Would be an interesting spectacle at the very least, and would allow Roderick to bring the Seahorse with him.

There isn't any real basis for that happening, but I think it would be pretty cool.

Cool idea indeed! I mean it's magic so if you can ride your cavalry through a big astral tree branch why not a ship? BTW, this obviously opens up the possibility we ARE shifting back already too if this was indeed the point (could start a new thread in Falconia, coronation, wedding, etc but doesn't necesarially have to continue now). Also, despite this technically being true with every latest episode, it's really never felt closer to the "end game" than now. Miura has pretty much written himself in-canon God powers to move the chess pieces anywhere he wants on the board in an instant. He could credibly start the "final confrontation" at any time now, though I'm guessing his version of rushing it would still be like 10+ volumes instead of 30+ more.

I even want to believe that's why the release of these recent episode(s) was so orthodox, preparing for bigger things ahead, moving heaven and earth behind the scenes, "I'm not slowing down... I'm just RAMPING UP!" But again, that might be wishful thinking.

Indeed. This actually opens up so many possibilities where travel may have been a barrier. The biggest one perhaps being how Griffith and the Falcons could have reached Skellig. Whereas before it may have seemed a bit impractical for them to march and sail all the way to the island in a world that is already overwrought with violent astral creatures, now they could reasonably go there whenever they wanted, and without much effort and with minimal travel time.

Of course, that's putting the cart before the horse as we don't really have a clearly defined motivation for such an attack. But it does open up the possibility.

Considering that a number of Griff's crew could at least fly, and potentially transport others quickly that way, I think it holds the biggest potential for Guts' side since before they'd have to take volumes traveling by ship and even then finding a way through the wilderness of Fantasia to somehow bypass Falconia's layers of defenses... now they could potentially just appear in Griffith's tree trunk throne room! Granted, that's just potential, whereas Griffith now already has license to show up anywhere, anytime. He could already be in Skellig when we shift back there! "Hey Casca, what's up, wanna return to my side and be my sword and stuff?"

I put a few hours into Horizon: Zero Dawn yesterday and so far it's not blowing my skirt up. It looks absolutely gorgeous, but the faux primitive post-apocalyptic society with AI animals plot doesn't do much for me, kind of a SyFy movie story (when they start hunting the robot animals instead of the one's with meat I was incredulous =), and though it looks and acts largely like Tomb Raider or BotW, the controls and mechanics are a bit clunky like I find the Assassin's Creed games; overly complicated, and not as fluid as you'd expect (I don't even like the horse-riding because it treats the horse more like a car, which I guess makes as much sense as anything, but I haven't got used to "braking" instead of just pulling up). There's just too much going on in general (your screen is constantly covered in bullshit like you're inputting commands to the console or something, guess I could eliminate that) and I don't feel like I'm getting the full benefit of any of it. Also, it's way more a "talk to every NPC" RPG than action/adventure game, and I'm over that. The dialogue actually made me appreciate the relative lack of voice acting in BotW and Zelda in general because I just read the subs and skip ahead anyway (not that there's anything wrong with the voice acting, it's all on point, I just don't want to sit and listen for minutes on end). I'll see if things change as I get more into the combat, but so far even that's been pretty feast or famine and if I don't turn a corner soon I think I'm out on Zero Dawn.

I read several reviews before I started playing it, all of which described it as the black sheep of the Phantasy Star family, but I figured I'd play it for myself and see. I hate to say it, but all of them were pretty spot-on.

THANK GOD. I was really worried about you headed down the PS3 path, and potentially missing out on PS4, which is still pretty great (I played through it on Virtual Console on Wii a few years ago).

Sometimes the consensus is the consensus because it's absolutely correct. Despite what some say, and that it's an enthusiasts journalism, I actually find gaming to be relatively easy to objectively judge in that if everyone thinks it's a fun example of whichever gaming form it is, it probably is and vice versa (and it's easy enough to separate mechanics, one's personal tastes, and more subjective aspects like story elements). Except Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Right now, though, I'm playing Wing Commander. I played the crap out of this game when I was a kid, but I don't recall ever beating it or its first sequel. I'm almost through the first campaign, and I intend on playing the Secret Missions afterwards. I'm at work right now, but damn do I wish I was at home in a dogfight with the Kilrathi.

This was/is my dad's favorite series, of which I've only really played Privateer all the way through. If I recall from his efforts to get all the medals etc, the final missions, particularly the WCI & II expansions, get pretty crazy, at least if you're going for perfection. Great games though, and way ahead of their time in many respects. Good luck, Blair.

That being said, I very much enjoy ME3 outside of these strange Cerberus shenanigans. There were great moments on Tuchanka and Rannoch that I had been waiting for. Omega, Leviathan, and the Citadel are probably my favorite DLCs in the series as well. I do prefer 3 over 2 for sure. ME2's best parts were the character missions.

There were so many of those I couldn't do them all, and after getting so caught up in the story of ME1 part two couldn't help but feel like a deferment or step backward, but I probably wasn't appreciating what WAS good about it because I was looking for something else. ME3 was that something, and though it certainly wasn't perfect in its payoff of ME1's potential, from the very beginning it didn't shy away from it.

I don't see how they could turn down extending platforms after all that GTA5 money.

I agree in principle, but Rockstar may not, after all they haven't committed yet and how/why did they do it with the original Red Dead Redemption? It's not like they were hard up for cash after GTAIII through GTAIV either, and they could have made a larger percentage of sales on PC than they did GTA5, which was relatively minuscule on PC (and the bad GTAIV PC port's numbers were awful compared to console, like 20 to 1). Ironically, at least for those of us that have no interest in such shit, I think the saving grace might be the desire to take advantage of a long term RDR Online revenue stream on PC. That might make it worth their while if the raw sales numbers don't.

I appreciate the future prediction. I mean, that's a topic unto itself, but one's anticipation is halfway to appreciation, especially with games. I still haven't fired up Zero Dawn because, despite it looking and sounding good, I just don't have the compulsion to play yet. So instead I'm gaining completion % on Hollow Knight when I'm probably past the point of diminishing returns. Though last night was a lot of productive fun; doing the Hive, White Palace, maxing out the Nail and collecting notches which meant the Coliseum. Good, but way too late, times.

This may not necessarily be the most honest list though. With how much I played and enjoyed Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne in comparison to most everything else, they probably should ALL be on this list, but that would make things feel a tad repetitive. Games like Monster Hunter World, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Nier Automata could qualify, but they still need some time to sink in; they were great when I played them, but are they really great enough to qualify as games of the decade? Only time will tell. And I have mixed feelings about putting GTAV up on the list; I loved the game a lot, but I hate GTA Online and the effect it's since had on Rockstar and the rest of the industry. Well, when push comes to shove, I can always kick it to the curb in the event that I decide to incorporate the other games I have in consideration.

You bring up a lot of pertinent issues, starting with the the subjectivity, and honesty, of this, even to oneself. Should I just list the games I played, and presumably enjoyed, the most? One's that had the biggest impact, even, or perhaps especially, in a short amount of time? Should these be high brow prestige titles or any addictive guilty pleasure time sink? What about games that meant a lot to me at the time but I don't think much of now; do I elevate something I didn't care as much for then and don't have strong feelings about but now recognize to have aged better? I've been wrestling with all this and editing my list constantly, even going all the way back to the year of my birth!

I think I'm far from done too because I'm switching all the time (I pretty much elevated the Souls titles to the top of their years because those are the games I've been playing constantly the past few years, even if I don't have the same fervor for DeS I did for Infinite Space because I played DeS later just to appreciate it). Though the exercise has been revealing, otherwise. For instance, check out the mid-90s and particularly '97 and '98! Just crazy franchise-defining and starting classics one after another (I refuse to believe this is truly subjective and just because it was MY prime =). If I was holding to top three I could probably cut down '97, but for '98 its basically impossible for me to eliminate one of the top four that year, they all meant and mean so much to me. It's crazy Fallout 2 isn't #1 in its year because I feel like I lived in that game for a year, but it's up against Oof'nT. I'm tempted to put the original above FFVII too (Mario 3 vs Mega Man 2 is also nuts to me, yet I put Sam & Max above Doom no prob =).

On the other end of the spectrum, the early to mid-2000s were shit, at least for me. I looked at lists of every release those years to find the games I really liked and man was there a ton of mediocre shit out, horrible titles and cover artwork too. I had to reach on some of those just to get to three, and here I didn't want to turn it into simply a list of "games I've played" but ones you could really argue were best in their year.

And just for fun, I decided to do what Griffith did, and post my top 3 games for every year of the last decade.

It is fun, and like I said, I'm still adding, subtracting and moving games. Some games I wonder if I should even have as favorites or more like they were infamous to me, like ME2, MGS2 (maybe MGS4 for that matter), and Code Veronica. I did get a lot of entertainment out of them, even if some of it was for the wrong reasons.

I have Nioh, but haven't played it yet, so 2017 is liable to change. Monster Hunter World is the only game of 2018 I've actually played through, so that list will remain incomplete for quite some time.

Yeah, I half-jokingly put Dark Souls Remastered for 2018 because the only other game from this year I even started was Dead Cells and it's way too soon to tell.

If I remember correctly RDD is a impossible port because the coding of the game is a mess.

The idea it was so bad it was "impossible" for them to optimize their own code for PC sounded a little suspect; as if no PC ported games had messy code, plus it was already on both PS3 and X-Box 360, so it's not like it was something singularly designed to only work on one specific platform. I tried looking for verification and came upon this thread on the subject:

So, seems like it's just a rumor to justify it not happening, though I did see a couple of weird glitches myself (like double Marstons in a cutscene =). Anyway, however messy the code was, I'm pretty sure it could have been done by Rockstar or somebody. Plus, it's not like Rockstar wouldn't just put out a crappy port if they really wanted to do it. =) That's actually my guess, that after the experience of GTA IV and them not optimizing RDR for PC in the first place they just didn't want to bother to deal with the inherent problems or fallout so they moved on.

I'm hoping they've reconsidered and planned for it this time, but like Aaz warned I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

Red Dead Redemption 1 still hasn't been released on PC, so... probably better not to wait.

You're telling me. Such a shame since it's one of the best games I've ever played (even the zombie spinoff isn't bad). I can't even really blame them though when you look at some of the sales of games on PC versus the crazy numbers of their console counterparts. GTAV is obviously a wild outlier itself, but when you're selling 88.5 million copies of something on consoles and 1.5 million on PC the question becomes "why do PC?" not "why not?" I wish they were more desperate for money so those extra million sales actually meant more to them (most anybody would kill to move that total, and it's relatively inconsequential to them; though I bet it's worth it for the Online microtranactions =). Long story short, yeah, I'll probably get it at launch for PS4, and unless the game is all an allegory for how Donald Trump is a really sexy leader it'll supplant Dark Souls Remastered as my favorite, and only, game from 2018.

I wonder, actually. I never could get into GTAV and haven't cared for any recent Rockstar games, so I wonder if I'll be so enamored with them in the age of GTA Online and what I'm sure will be RDR Online. I'm quick to yell at clouds, even the Bloodborne online PS+ requirement grossed me out and kind of turned me off, or at least it affecting me correlated with my winding down with that game. Though that might even be worse, essentially putting basic gameplay features behind a third party paywall (why not just charge for high res or controller options in the menu, "Requires PlayStation Plus"? =).

I feel like Toriyama had no problem showing his face until Oda decided not to.

Kind of weird

Yeah, it's not like nobody knows what he looks like or you can't find pictures of him happily posing for the camera, but considering how big Dragon Ball was and still is, and since he's no longer actively producing it, maybe he wants to keep a lower profile these days? But then... don't do interviews, or just accept the bump in awareness until it recedes again? You're right, it's weird, but there's a certain logic to it that the less people that recognize him at the newsstands or cafe, the better for his day to day life.

I cut the list off at 10, but there's definitely a whole bunch of great games I had to cut.

Same for my top three every year, and some years or games that "won" the year are weird, or wouldn't make my top ten if I just ranked them all by preference because some years obviously have better games than others. 2008 is an interesting case, that was a real "dream" year for me as two games I'd always wanted up to that point, that weren't necessarially ever going to be a reality, was a first person 3D Fallout game and a classic Mega Man exactly like they used to make them and that year I got both. It was hard to decide which to rank first. I probably like Mega Man 9 more now, but played Fallout 3 more, like A LOT more, at the time, and Braid could be the most important of the bunch... but I don't think any of them would crack my top ten this decade. =)

This is pretty tough. The release years all bleed together after this much time. As a result, I leaned on "Best Of" curated lists, so the picks are probably missing a bunch of smaller games that I loved too.

Yeah, I had an even more rudimentary method, basically googling "best video games" and the year so then I had to think for the indies, but I usually ended up cutting those anyway because it's kind of hard comparing the experience of games you liked or even loved for a few hours to 20-30+ hour AAA titles that are, hopefully, pushing the envelope somehow themselves. Sometimes it was like comparing great poems or short stories to novels; unless the novel is bad, it's going to have a bigger impact by virtue of format. Some made the cut like Braid because it literally changed my perception of reality at the time (I began casually trying to rewind time before realizing I could only do that while playing the game; that's a good game). Limbo made it on there because I played it through a couple times and there wasn't anything else I was excited to include, like ME2. I guess it's possible for a favorite game to still be a disappointment to you, like DS2, which I've played 10 times as much as Shovel Knight (play time isn't everything of course, I didn't put Star Wars Angry Birds or 3DS Golf on there despite playing them way more than some on the list). Anyway, before I cut it down to three each year I had included smaller, shorter games like Don't Look Back, Crush the Castle, Gone Home, Tower of Heaven, Sword of Xolan, and Papers, Please (I probably only played them because of you and Aaz anyway =). Then there were games I thought of like Cave Story, RE4, MGS3, and SotC only to realize, "Damn, those games are 15 years old... Damn, I'm old."

I went top three by year for the last ten years, but have it your way with your selection(s). Some of these are toss ups, including some not listed here, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but for better or worse...

Actually, on the contrary, I couldn't really care less about the individual God Hand or their backgrounds (and SK and Zodd are already pretty solidly established characters, we already know them well, specifics aside). They're cool and serve an important function in the story, but that's also the extent to which I care about them. If we get extensive, relevant backgrounds on them down the line, great, I'll enjoy that and care more, but I won't be disappointed if we don't and they just are what they are. I understand the curiosity about them, but not that sort of investment at the expense of much richer characters.

Of course. But I was actually looking for a short list of what you consider the class of the genre. This may already be on the board, but it's an vague thing to search 18,000 posts for, especially of a man that hates the term "metroidvania," so maybe I shouldn't even be asking (we could go with the SotN team's original sexy description, "2D exploration action game" or "zeldavania," which is just Zelda II; its ultimate vindication =).

BTW, I'm close now with Hollow Knight, pretty sure I can engage the final boss now, or at least start the end-game in earnest, but it was a bit of slog there for a while. That's the flaw of these games in general though; two thirds of the way through the exploration element invariably stagnates and your ability to progress can hinge on spotting what you need to do next on like a single pixel (or a wall you randomly need to crouch next to =), or some combination of items/abilities, in a game world that's map is now as big as every screen from Zelda at that point. That just stops the momentum of the game dead while you search for the MacGuffin you don't even know you're looking for. Thank god for that old man in town. Anyway, now I'm back to stalling and tooling around not wanting it to end incomplete.

Both the Shadow Broker and Citadel DLCs are quite enoyable. Mass Effect 3's DLCs really helped me from getting sick of the game due to the awful Cerberus plotline.

Yeah, those seem like the two "must play" story DLCs (and Leviathan looks good too), but do you mean ME2 for the Cerberus-centric plot or did you just hate that part of it in ME3 that much (I recall it being unmemorable but minimal)? I basically already wrote manifestos vigorously defending ME3, but ME2, despite maybe being the most well received in the series, is my least favorite, making my ranking 1, 3, 2. I wonder if that would change upon replaying and reconsidering them knowing the big picture.

Ugh, man, the sheer pricing for the DLC has been the major put-off for me playing these games.

You don't need them to enjoy the series, particularly ME1, which you can grab regularly for $5 and is totally worth it for the plot (it has a seminal gaming moment for me), though the graphics and gameplay are naturally a bit dated by this point, it's still the best game in the series and as far as pop sci-fi goes kind of supplanted Star Wars and Star Trek simultaneously for me the last decade. Pretty neat trick (and I never bought the two biggest DLC), too bad they couldn't keep it going with Andromeda.

They should just sell out the trilogy and bring back Shepard for "one last ride"... that may be another trilogy if it revives the franchise. =)

I know what you mean! Who IS supposed to care about this down the line? You never did, I still do (clearly =), but it's fickle and fleeting and doesn't extend far beyond the reach of the classic movies and, more importantly, characters. Do young people care about this more than any other young adult blockbuster franchise? Do kids? There's no defined story integrity or continuity to speak of to engender such feelings, they're just sort of flailing from one to the next. What seemed like at least a promising start, if nothing else, might have already been the peak of this endeavor. To put it in common terms, Star Wars, at least as a film series, could be well on its way to becoming like the Alien "franchise"; a couple of classic films from the 70s and 80s turned into a mixed bag of lesser sequels, prequels and pseudo-remakes that at best are mediocre tributes that dilute the power of the originals, and at worst are self-parodies that make you question that power in the first place.

David Lynch said something simple yet insightful about Lucas and Star Wars, that it was completely his thing, but it just so happened to make ridiculous money and became what we know it as today. It wasn't created to be that though, and at some point was as much Lucas' weird creation as Lynch's works are his. And even Lucas, as much as he mass marketed and merchandised Star Wars as a product, remained fiercely stubborn and possessive of the films, for better or worse, and had the wisdom not to try having one put out every year, every other year, or God forbid six months apart, but when he felt like it, which he largely didn't, and eventually not at all, naturally. Contrast that with Disney's never ending committee commissioned reruns and suddenly Lucas and his purported gonzo sequels about the microbiotic world of Midiclorians and the Whills sounds more appealing. Even if they would have been horrible failures it might have been a preferable outcome, a better end just for ending, like if Alien had ended with 3, and perhaps even nobly for trying something different and unique. I might rather live in a universe where those weird failed creations exist instead of this inexorable march to nowhere.

Ah, well better than it used to be, and I already own the games so I'll check if the bundles ever go on sale since. Somehow I can get the latest Dues Ex for like 90% less than now relatively ancient ME dlc; thanks EA.

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Yeah. I finished it at what's probably 99.99% completion when it came out and it's a great game

I'm back at it exploring an area I found but passed on before. I have 700+ Essence and will get to 900 shortly, but I feel like the rewards are getting worse; it better give me something to bypass some obstructions next time. =) I'm also pissed I wasted a small key on the worthless surface guy that I could really use below now to enter a house (I kind of wondered if I'd regret it).

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but it doesn't reach the heights of those it looks up to.

For fun name your faves (mine: SotN & Metroid... FUSION! Wally will be sickened =), and what'd you think of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (assuming you played it)?

Replaying the Mass Effect Trilogy for the umpteenth time and having a blast doing so. I'll definitely be skipping Andromeda after I finish ME3 though.

I wanted to replay the whole trilogy at one point but sabotaged my experience from the start over-worrying about making the perfect Shepard and doing the best playthrough (invariably I make the best character and complete the most on my initial blind playthroughs =). Also, do you still need to buy all the DLC individually with crazy expensive EA/Bioware points or some shit? I think I figured out that it'd still cost hundreds of dollars to do it all and it's a shame that shit never got appropriately reduced in price or bundled in a final edition of the games or trilogy. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. I still haven't done the Shadow Broker or Citadel DLCs because of that. I could just buy those two, but I'm so far removed from it and if they don't want me to ever be able to actually afford the whole experience, fuck 'em, I'll move on.

Still playing Hollow Knight and getting deeper into the gameplay and collectibles and the size of the game is actually wearing on me because I feel like I'm reaching the end game but after 20 some hours it's feeling like more of the same and like I just passed the point of diminishing returns on new and exciting depths and features. Still enjoying it, and maybe I'm just tired from the heat, but I'm not firing it up now excited about last night's unfinished business left to explore, but more like, "Ok, what's next, I'm tired of searching the same corridors, how do I reach the next boss on the map." It might just be time to stop taking it as it comes and smelling the roses and hunker down with the earnest intent to get it done.

So, Doom Eternal will have twice as many enemies and is adding a Souls-like PvP where you can invade others' games as a demon and vice versa. To the former I wonder how a bunch of new monsters will mix with the revamped classics, and/or if they'll be adding in the Doom 3 varieties ala the Hell Knight. To the latter, that sounds cool, I've expressed my fondness for Souls multiplayer before so maybe this will be fun, particularly getting invaded by a player-level demon (it won't have the same stakes as, say, being invaded while out to retrieve your souls, but it could keep you on your toes). Speaking of which, where's Doomguy and Oscar of Astora or Solaire in Smash Ultimate!? You should have to play as Doomguy in first person and the DS characters using R1 and L1 to block and attack. =)

There's also a new video for Red Dead Redemption 2 that looks promising, but there hasn't been much else about it for a game so close to launch and I'm still not sure if I should grab it for PS4 or wait for a possible PC release, and would that still come to Steam or a Rockstar app, etc etc. I'll probably just grab it on PS4 for the ease and instant gratification rather than the longer upside of a PC version (got to make the same call with Sekiro, which we know is coming to PC).